The Frontier Kid

Getting back to my 14 years of age, I now had met another friend by name of Howard Young. Howard lived close to the skating rink and had a job of putting on skates to customers at the rink. (Note: in those days, most of the skates were clamped on to your shoes or if you had the money, you could rent shoe skates. The clamp ons were 25 ¢, and the shoe skates were 50 ¢.)

Howard and I immediately became close friends due to our sports, hunting and fishing etc. (Howard was the chief supporter of his mother and three young sisters.) Howard got me a job of putting on skates twice a week, or whenever special nights were on, like school skates. (Note: Several years later this is where Ardis came in.) Howard also had a job of digging graves at the County's Cemeteries. He also let me in on that for a couple years. We got $9.00 per grave. I remember one grave in particular. The ground was frozen, and we had to pick every shovel-full. So, we were late in getting it dug. Therefore, the pall-bearers had to wait until we were finished to continue with the funeral.

Now, during trapping season, I criss-crossed the path of Mike Flanery and we got well acquainted. I learned that in the spring and summer, he hunted frogs and sold the legs to customers in Detroit. He said that he had more customers than frogs and wanted me to team up with him. After I learned how much I could make in a day, he had a partner (we could make up to $20).